Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories by Susie Bright

James Dean. My mother and little brother Seymour weren’t home. They were at a science fair at Utrecht High School, where my brother had won some kind of prize. His revolting interest in the earthworms he dug up from the swampy marshes near our house had paid off.
    Maybe my father was home and would go to the movies with me. I loved going places with my handsome father. Women were always looking at him, and I wondered sometimes if they thought I was his date. When we’d go to the movies, he’d always buy two Hershey’s bars with almonds—but give me the almonds from his, because he knew how much I liked them. On the way home, he would ask my opinion of the movie. He told me I had a very smart, insightful mind.
    Our gray Plymouth Fury was in the driveway, an encouraging sign. I went in the side door that led to our finished basement. I thought he’d be down there reading the newspapers in his big leather chair.
    My father was in the basement, but he wasn’t reading newspapers and he was not alone. He was leaning over the studio couch, his pants down to his thighs. What happened to his underwear? There was a woman beneath him and she wasn’t wearing clothes. He was moving up and down on top of her and she was letting out silly little squeals like my brother’s pet hamster, Eisenhower.
    I knew exactly what they were doing. My parents had a book, Love Without Fear , they kept in the drawer of my father’s bedside table. I used to read it when I was alone in the house. I knew all the position illustrations by heart.
    The woman had such big boobs they spread out on either side of her like yeasty white dough. I could see my father’s scrotum, pink as a chicken neck, bouncing up and down below his ass. He bent his head; started to kiss her chest. Her nipple was exposed, a sloppy brown stain like a coffee spill, but that didn’t stop him from taking it into his mouth.
    Then I saw her face. She had an ugly little snout for a nose, and bright orange lipstick smeared all over her mouth and chin. She looked like a clown. My father started pounding into her harder and harder. I stood on the bottom step, as if rooted, unable to tear my eyes away from the horrid scene. I felt a quickening between my legs where I was cleft. The tiny button that was there, which Love Without Fear called a clitoris, began to twitch. My insides were heaving and churning. I felt sick.
    I made myself go back up the stairs and outside. A few doors down from our house a brand-new pink and white Oldsmobile was parked. I’d never seen it on our block before. I knew this was the evil chariot that had brought the clown to our house.
    I ran down to Seaview Avenue, the border between the development of split-level houses where we lived and the fields beyond. I went out through the bulrushes into the swamps, way beyond Canarsie Pier, until I found the spot I was looking for. It was a deep dip in the sand surrounded by rocks and tall reeds, a little distance from the Belt Parkway. I went there with Jerome Rothman three times to make out. I crouched between the rocks, crying and throwing up. After a while I went home.
    The Oldsmobile was gone from its spot, and our car was gone, too. The door was locked so I let myself in with my key and went up to my bedroom. I lay down on my belly, unzipped my jeans, and put my fingers inside the crotch of my panties. This was the position I liked best when I wanted to comfort myself. I put three fingers into my slit; my mother liked to call it a lily. I pretended I was wearing a pharaoh’s crown and Jerome Rothman was my body slave. He was rubbing baby oil all over me and between my legs. He saved my clitoris for last. After I came twice, I dozed off.
    I heard my mother and brother talking downstairs. I found my mother in the kitchen washing dishes; my brother was watching the TV in the living room. When I told her what I saw in the basement, she staggered to the kitchen table and fell into one of the chairs, still holding